Photo by Bryan Minear on Unsplash
for Lent
Press your palm against the Tree.
Feel its pull toward the center of the earth,
how roots drag through flesh like nails
as earth claims the crown.
Now let the Tree hold you in your
full weight of wrong and right,
your selfishness absorbed by flaming roots.
You have never been so light.
for Eastertide
Learn the comfort
of rocks
their condensed
stability
like your spirit
at peace
as you lean on a boulder
in a field
fiddleneck
nodding beside
a cabbage butterfly
floating
from cup
to cup—
Christ unwraps
his graveclothes
slips through
the tight molecules
and sits down
to eat with you
—Jean Janzen is a poet from Fresno, Cal. and member of College Community MB Church. “for Eastertide” was previously published in Christian Century magazine. Both pieces will appear in a new collection of Jean’s poems due out this year.
